


Losses of Attitudes

by mriaow



Series: North By Northwestern [2]
Category: Fake News RPF, Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bullying, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-16
Updated: 2012-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-05 11:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mriaow/pseuds/mriaow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rahm, Barack, et al. are in the same college dorm, engaging in ballet lessons, politicking, and trying to see and not-see various things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losses of Attitudes

By Monday Rahm has decided that he is never sleeping in his own bed again. It’s a simple decision to make, really, because why would he? Why would he, when in the span of three days he has forgotten completely the loneliness of a cold bed? Why would he, when most of him doubts he’ll ever want to sleep again? His left arm has gone to sleep, awkwardly folded and crunched beneath him, he is three inches from falling off the edge of the bed and the sheets don’t smell as nice as his, but Rahm wouldn’t move if the universe waved nirvana at him from the other side of the room.

The universe beside him sneezes.

Barack rubs his face in the pillow, blinking several times before looking blearily up at Rahm. "What, no ‘bless you’?" he inquires.

Rahm considers this. "Gesundheit," he offers, not willing to give up quite that much so quickly.

Barack groans, his head falling back down. “It’s too early in the morning for Hebrew.”

Rahm wonders briefly whether that merits a glare, a smack, or a hostile silence, and finally decides on a kiss, dragging it out, making small rustlings between them as he teases Barack’s upper lip. Their mingled breath smells horrific, Rahm’s head feels stuffed with dusty Kleenexes, and he might need to shave his tongue, this is disgusting, and he couldn’t stop if you paid him. Barack’s lips twitch against his, soft and lazy; their knees knock together, both of them entirely too big for the bed. Rahm slips his cold fingers under Barack’s shirt, feeling him shiver, and deepens the kiss, opening Barack’s mouth to explore it lazily. The minutes tick deliciously on, cotton rustling and warmth, warmth all around.

Barack sneezes again.

His eyes snap open. "Oh Rahm, oh sorry, oh God, I – I –"

Rahm cuts him off, their stubble rasping together as he rolls over, now poised above Barack, who groans. Rahm’s hand closes on his hip, fingers dipping lower, still kissing him and kissing him, and oh God he needs to brush his teeth or die a quick death, but he keeps kissing Barack, straddling him now. Barack lets out another groan, this one deeper, his hands clutching at Rahm, and Rahm is officially wearing too many clothes.

Rahm opens his eyes, wanting to see him, wanting to see Barack lying beneath him groaning and sleepy-lidded, and it takes a minute before the glaring red numbers rise up to punch him in the face. "Fuck," he swears, never meaning the word with more of a vengeance than he does in this moment, and Barack’s eyes fly open, lashes startled wide.

"Uhm," he says, not sure if Rahm is serious or not, and then cranes his neck backwards to see what Rahm is looking at. Rahm looks down at his exposed neck, brown and pale lines, then down at their joined bodies, corduroy and denim, and then back up to the alarm clock.

"Fuck," he says, because it needs to be said again.

Rahm drags himself backwards, feeling as sticky and gummy as toffee, the cold air caressing his neck as he leaves the warmth. His fingers stay knotted in the sheets, his hair slick up one side of his head, and Barack looks so much thinner without Rahm beside him that Rahm can’t help himself falling back for a few more seconds. He groans again, not the same kind of groan, though it has much the same effect. Rahm presses his fingers against Barack’s jaw, kisses him roughly, kicks the bed in anger, grabs a jacket and a notebook at random and is off down the hallway, pulling on his shoes as he goes.

Only once he gets outside does he realise it’s Barack’s notebook, and hunkers down in his seat, not one single word of the lecture even reaching his red ears.

-

"Look," debates Anderson, "all I’m saying is that there should at least have been a recount!"

"It took them three days to count all the ballots in the first place," says Jon. "I suppose you can’t blame them for not wanting to do it again."

"But it was so close! 240 votes, Jon – 240!"

The fallout from the referendum still hasn’t left them, minor outrage fizzing in little sparks over campus. It might be deserved or it might just be bitterness, Rahm isn’t sure which is better or worse, or which is liable to get them anywhere. “Well yeah, but out of a couple thousand, that’s a fairly substantial number,” Jon argues, playing the devil’s advocate no one, not even him, needs or wants to hear. He doesn’t look directly at Anderson though, pointedly pretending to study as Stephen flicks sudsy bubbles at him from the sink in the common room. The windows are rattling.

Anderson leans in closer. "But there were 67 uncounted votes, Jon; just disqualified! I mean, come on – doesn’t this just smack of suspicion to you?"

"Well, so what? Whether it passed by 240 or 173 or 4, it still passed." Jon goes back to his textbook, wiping a sud off a pie graph.

Anderson chews on his lip. "But it’s the principle, Jon, it’s not fair! It isn’t."

There is a wet clatter of dishes and the loud smack of a dishtowel, and – "Stephen, I swear to God, I am going to punch you in the nose." There is a brief scuffle, and then Jon is sitting on Stephen, who is squirming madly and seems to be trying to stick his wet fingers up Jon’s nose.

"I nominate the mouth," volunteers John eagerly from the couch, and Anderson follows with a "hear, hear!"

John Oliver is sitting between Rahm and Barack, all long shaggy hair, wet brown eyes and Britishness. He looks like an unkempt Chocolate Lab, sweet and jumpy and utterly unconcerned with anything resembling schoolwork. Rahm needs him here, a buffer, because the urge to reach out to Barack is too strong and he really, really needs to do this research now, before the entire weekend goes to pot.

"Agh! Stephen, get out of there! That’s not – that isn’t – Stephen!" Jon’s protests are met with only feverish giggling, and his thrashing foot knocks over the stack of newspapers and magazines in the middle of the room.

Kilauea Erupts, reads a headline from January – Riot at Sing-Sing Prison, and Rahm rubs his fingers over his temples, the friendly noise in the room fading as the wind hisses past them, snowflakes still falling meltingly onto the window. He’s had enough of being told different things by different people, and wants nothing more than a night of not talking, or at least not talking aloud. "Fuck me," Rahm mutters, flipping the thin pages of the law dictionary irritably.

"Wish, command," says John with a lewd wink before he remembers who he’s sitting next to. Then he gets a nervous look on his face and scoots off the couch to interfere with the scene on the floor, which is fast dissolving into a Battle Royale, with tickling and dishsoap as the weapons of choice. Rahm finds himself face to face with Barack, eyes locking before either of them can think better of it, and Rahm puts down his pen, thinking despairingly of his neglected paper. He tries once more to read a sentence, doesn’t get past the third word, and when he closes the book it sighs, wishing him luck. "Done researching, Rahm?" Barack asks carefully.

"No. Nowhere near," Rahm says, drawing the words out, enjoying them, and Barack’s eyes widen.

Barack trips over the stack of newspapers on his hasty way out the door, trying to appear unhurried and nonchalant, and Rahm grins to himself.

They barely make it back to the room before Rahm is pushing him against the doorway, slamming it shut with a palm and crushing his lips to Barack’s. "How’s this for research?" Rahm bites out, grinning viciously and breathing hard.

They each lose a button off their shirts and a moment off their youth in their blind haste, an anonymous crashing coming from the corner after Rahm stumbles. Their tongues and sharp noses come together, Barack’s hands sliding down Rahm’s back. Barack has him at the waist, Barack has him at the mouth, and falling after him is all Rahm can do. 

Rahm will look for the button in the morning, feeling he has gained more than he’s lost, though the opposite is true. Between the heat and ribs and fevered breathing, keeping track of either doesn’t matter.

-

When Rahm first spies her he knows he has a right to be jealous. Fairness has nothing to do with it, but he can’t help but feel dismayed nonetheless at the lack of it: Michelle Robinson is indeed glorious, and a full inch taller than Rahm. She chatters animatedly away to a friend in the second row while he grinds his teeth three rows back, hoping Barack knows better than to try and sit next to her. When they talk after class, Barack practically stammering, what the hell was this, Rahm thinks that between lectures and the three of them having a study group (which he didn’t recall agreeing to), he should basically give up on passing the course right now. He can’t fucking concentrate when he has steam coming out of his ears and she has rosy cheeks and laughs at Barack’s horrible, horrible jokes. 

“You’re not funny,” Rahm tells him, and Michelle says with a smile and a conspiratorial glance, “You’re really not.”

Why Barack seems pleased by this he can’t tell, and Rahm really, truly wants someone to hate for all of this, because try as he might, he finds himself completely unable to hate Michelle From Law Class. It’s not that she’s impossible to hate – he probably could if he wanted to, but that’s just it: he doesn’t want to.

She’s just so much more easy to fall in love with.

Rahm looks at her and her rosy cheeks, looks at Barack and his goofy ears, and doesn’t think of drawing battle lines, but instead of lines in the sand. Those are easier to draw and infinitely more breakable.

"She’s –" Barack says, struggling for words as they walk back to the dorms, sneakers full of mud and melting snow already. He shrugs, looking embarrassed and happy.

Look at me like that, Rahm thinks helplessly, and he should probably say it, too, but instead he hunches over his books, trying to keep them dry. It’s not raining, but there’s a wind, so it’s not only the books that are a lost cause.

Barack looks over at him anxiously, walking almost slanted, hands in his pockets. "You’re not – are we… okay?" Barack asks, and in a second Rahm realises that they are, and he grabs him by the elbow and they run the rest of the way to the building. He keeps the books clutched to his stomach, telling himself he doesn’t need to worry, he can do this, they can. They have many long moments before this needs to become a problem. And even if they don’t have those, they have right now, they have this. A drop hits his forehead. They are okay.

-

Jon pokes his head in after a perfunctory knock, and Rahm puts down the book immediately, half-rising before he realises who it is. "Have you seen Stephen? I – we had a thing –"

"I thought he was in John’s room," Rahm supplies.

"I knocked, no-one answered," Jon says, brow furrowed.

"Maybe they went out?"

"I guess."

"Don’t they have improv class together or something?"

"Yeah, but that’s – whatever," Jon says.

He stays leaning against the doorway, looking weary. "What’re you reading?"

Rahm shrugs, gesturing to the sociology textbook, and Jon pads over to the desk, looking around the room. "Jesus Rahm, you make your bed? I wouldn’t have pegged you as a neat freak." He surveyed the ground frankly, littered as it was with socks and crumpled pages of Barack’s homework.

Rahm looks at his bed, suddenly realising how conspicuously empty and unused it appears, entirely unrumpled and serving as a secondary table for his economics notes. "I don’t sleep," Rahm says. "I am a creature of the night. You should know that by now."

Jon snorts. "Sure, and I’m Batman. Who’s that?" he says, jutting his chin at a picture on the desk.

"The brothers Emanuel."

"Holy shit, he looks like he could take me out with his chin. You’re a bunch of handsome little fuckers. Have they been to visit?"

"Zeke’s coming next weekend," Rahm says, wanting to chew on his pen and crush it into a pulp, but knowing it’s already been in Stephen’s mouth and not wanting to risk infection. "And if you think I’m fucking introducing him to you lot you can go jump out the window."

"Afraid to show him what a bunch of idiots your friends are?"

"No. But considering that you are all idiots, I just think not letting you talk to him or breathe near him is in the interest of letting you keep all your limbs."

Jon grins. "I am a fan of my limbs, thanks. Looking forward to it?"

"Like hell. It’s a fucking drain here, I need someone with a brain cell count higher than my own once in a while."

They both hear it, though it’s muffled: Stephen’s laugh, unmistakeable. Rahm, wary, keeps his eyes fixed on Jon, who stares at the picture, fingering the edge of the desk and looking instantly one thousand years more tired. Rahm wonders if it’s harder to lose something after winning it or before, and wishes not for the first or last time that the stakes weren’t so high. Rahm knows that laugh, knows what it is and what it isn’t, but if it isn’t today it might as well be tomorrow, and if he ever thought Stephen Colbert wasn’t an idiot it was a mistake.

He doesn’t hear Jon leave quietly, shutting the door behind him.

-

"Tell me something," Rahm says as Barack traces a slow circle on his shoulder with his fingernail.

"Like what?"

"I don’t know. Not something old," Rahm says. "Something new this time." It only seems fitting.

Barack shifts, yawns against Rahm’s skin, and then starts. "Well, back in January red rain fell in the UK. It was caused by grains of sand from the Sahara Desert mixed in with the droplets; they’d blown over and fell down in the rain. It looked like it was raining blood."

"Hmm," Rahm says, trying to picture it, winds that big carrying little grains of sand, blowing through the dark to rain blood on the streets of London and all the green hills. Warm Sahara blood falling down and joining the cold English mud, chance gusts of dusty wind turning into a spectacle thousands of miles away.

"And hey – is the Big Island still erupting?" Rahm asks, knowing Barack will be happy he’s asked. This, too, seems fitting, that the Pacific Ocean is on fire and the Saharan Desert is flying northward, that the Earth would spin itself around for him, that he could turn himself upside-down and other things would follow.

Barack turns to him wordlessly, and the snow outside the building melts and drips, the world not frozen in one place anymore.

-

"Anyone seen Olbermann? Dickwad left his Shakespeare in my room and I’m going home over Easter. I don’t want him coming after me if he fails the thing."

"He went home this weekend." Anderson didn’t look up. "I’ll take it for you."

"You need a haircut, Vanderbilt."

"Fuck you."

"What? All I said was –"

"Just shut up, Joey. We’re trying to study, here."

The tension on the floor is nearing breaking point, the city and walls and insides of everyone’s heads looking grey and wet. All the chips put so enthusiastically on the table months ago have scattered and none of them can figure out quite who’s won them all. Stephen’s so wrapped up in his disaster of a monologue he can’t talk to anyone without spewing ‘wherefores’ and tearing out half a handful of hair, John’s homesick enough to have resorted to drinking tea in truly upsetting amounts and calling them all ‘berks,’ and Anderson does, admittedly, need a haircut. Jon hasn’t said more than a word to anyone in nearly a week, going out for runs in the sleet and piles of dirty, ashy snow every morning just to have something to pound his feet against.

Rahm glares at the newspapers, sick of the news and sick of everyone playing Michael fucking Jackson all the time and secretly relieved that’s all he can find to be angry about. It’s fucking exhausting, being angry and worried and sick of his friends and how stupid they all are about each other all the time. He’s tired of not knowing how to fix things so they all end up in two columns, only one line needing to be drawn between each of them and everything else falling naturally into place. 

The only things that fall naturally into place are boulders during earthquakes, he thinks, and then, are you trying to be profound? Get your head out of the fucking clouds before you get struck by lightning, Emanuel. Rahm, sitting on the couch, pushes his toes against Barack’s neck and ear, glad that the world isn’t shattering, and thinking Stephen was more like a cyclone than an earthquake, anyway. 

"Hey Rahm. You see this?" Barack isn’t looking at him, pointing to an ad in The Fulcrum and tilting his neck to encourage Rahm to keep curling his toes against it.

The ad was for the by-elections, for people wanting the open positions in the student federation for the next year. Rahm peered at it, considering. "Huh. You want that?"

Barack shrugged, the muscles bunching under Rahm’s heel. "Well, I was thinking University Affairs or something, I wasn’t sure."

Rahm paused, idly touching Barack’s ear with his big toe, mulling it over. "You want to take over that bathouse all by yourself? The entire place is full of fucknuts, Barack."

Anderson cuts in. "Look what happened during the referendum, even. Their stupid oversight council wasn’t even neutral."

"Well," Barack says, "what better way to make sure it doesn’t happen again than by doing it ourselves?"

"What, you want me to run with you?" Rahm placed his foot flat against Barack’s shoulder.

It wasn’t a bad idea, that was the kicker. It was probably even a good one, if they went about it right and tried to open the place up a little. Feeling a bit impulsive, Rahm nods, hoping he isn’t setting loose a hurricane of Barack’s ideals and good intentions and fucking hopes all over the place. When that gets loose it’s going to either sweep them all away or come crashing spectacularly down. "What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking Communications Director," Barack deadpans, and Rahm kicks him, stifling a giggle.

"Oh, God," groans Joey. "Please, no. Rahm couldn’t communicate diplomatically with a chimpanzee."

"‘Fuck that’ is actually a fairly convenient means of communication," Rahm feels obliged to point out. "It’s very succinct. Clear. Doesn’t leave any room for misconceptions."

"Well hey, if we’re going to make this a group effort, I was going to run for head of Social anyway," Joey volunteers, and they were grinning again, Barack looking bright and pleased his suggestion had gone over well. The sagging couch and mildewed carpet were cleared for a plan, Barack’s long fingers pausing in the air to make his points, and Joey sketching out his poster on the back of Jon’s anthro notebook.

That didn’t take long, Rahm thinks, as their voices got louder and Joey kept laughing. Spring was still coming with all the charm of a bladder infection, and Stephen was still preoccupied with his improv scenes with John and getting farther and farther into oblivion, and Michelle was still impossibly and despairingly amazing, but they had a plan. They had plans. They had an idea and it was much easier to run with it and keep one step ahead of any disasters, natural or otherwise, that could break or swallow them. 

-

"Tell me why you’re doing this again," Rahm says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"What, are my feet not right?" Stephen looks down at his splayed feet, puzzled. "I told you, it’s for a play –"

"Stephen." Rahm can’t get over how ridiculous he looks, can’t believe he actually went out and bought tights. "You play Duncan. It’s fucking Macbeth –"

"I told you not to say the name!" Stephen wails, his hair falling over his eye as his head whips up.

"Suck it up, Colbert, and turn your fucking knees out before I stab you. My point is, you don’t have to do anything except fucking stand there and then die."

"Maybe I just can’t get enough of your admittedly charming presence," snaps Stephen, and then amends, "It’s for my posture. I have to have regal bearing."

Rahm smacks Stephen’s thigh, and the dark-haired boy draws his leg up higher. Rahm walks around him as he goes through the exercises. "Keep your stomach muscles tight… more turnout… look up, dammit… good… okay, now your other side. Good, good… three, four, five… tighten your ass muscles –"

"I’m sorry, what?" Stephen stops, his composure dissolving into a fit of giggles.

Rahm just looks at him, using his you had better shape up stare. Stephen straightens again, looking straight ahead, his ass cheeks clenched so tightly his entire body becomes rigid. He looks straight ahead, using every ounce of strength he has not to break face. Rahm does first, holding the back of his hand against his mouth, having to hold on to the barre and Stephen’s shoulder to keep from falling over. Stephen lets out a cackle, his face resting against Rahm’s back, shaking with laughter. They hoot and gasp for breath.

"Boys?" The noise brings Nancy out of her office, hand covering a phone receiver. "I’m on the phone, could you keep it down?"

Stephen tries to nod, his face red and folded up with laughter, raising his hand to wave Nancy back into her office. She retreats with a stern smile, and Stephen turns to Rahm, still laughing, and hisses "‘boys’?" at him in disbelief.

Rahm shoves him. "What are you, twelve?"

"Twelve and a half," Stephen boasts, puffing out his chest like a bird in the absurd courting foliage of red tights. He looks back over his shoulder to be sure the door was closed, and then leans back towards Rahm. "So that’s why you’re here all the time. Not bad, my friend. Not bad at all."

Rahm scowls at him. "Nancy’s three years older than I am," he says. "And no, by the way: she smiles too much, she’s too – nice. Pleasant. I’m used to dealing with you meshugahs, you only smile when you’re doing something idiotic like tacking up pages of someone’s journal up and down the hall with annoted speculations about their sexuality."

"Not his journal, his diary," Stephen corrects him. "Besides, Keith’ll get over it. One day. Maybe when I run for President of the United States. And that’s better than you, you only smile when you’re about to knife someone in the back."

Rahm snorts. “The day you run for President is the day I leave the country.”

"Oooooh, you just lost your spot on the ticket, Rahmbo. Tough luck there. Could’ve been my VP. Guess you’ll just have to go back to Arby’s, or come on in a guest spot sometime." Stephen winks, wiggling his fingers at him until Rahm flicks the music back on and tells him to plié like a man.

The House – a studio three stories up over the main street – has the dusty, safe, slightly sour smell of resin and hardwood floors. Rows of costumes hang overhead, clouds above a certain sort of heaven Rahm has always been able to keep for himself. It is meticulously clean, gleaming and worn and familiar. He stays here some nights until Nancy flicks off the lights, not dancing, just stretching and looking out the windows at all the lights below. Rahm has never had a safe place to retreat to; never needed one when he made his safe places in people, their solidness and brightness and soft, dark cavities more than enough of an anchor. He’s never needed a safe place, but if he had, this would have been it.

After Stephen leaves, bounding noisily down the steps to the muddy streets with the offensive tights bundled under his arm, Rahm sits with his legs apart and looks at the dark city, feeling relaxed and full.

He hears the click of a door behind him, and then Nancy says, "Still here, Rahm?"

"Yeah. You leaving?"

"Not quite, I still have a few things to do. Feel free to stay for a while." She smiles at him, fiddling with one of the bags over her shoulder. He stands, pulling on his street clothes, as she turns off the stereo and picks up a fallen scarf to wind around herself.

"How’s Stephen coming?" she asks, her soft voice floating from the corner.

Rahm smiles. "When he’s just learning or practicing he’s like an ADHD reindeer with eight hooves, but when he actually focuses…" He trails off, not wanting to accidentally say anything nice about Stephen, though there’s plenty to say. If Rahm was that fast of a learner he wouldn’t need to be here.

"Hmm," Nancy laughs, delicate fingers sorting through the tapes on the wall and putting them back in their cases. "Well, it sounds better than the time I made you take over my junior class. I should have known better; I thought we were going to be sued."

Rahm tied the drawstring on his pants. "Always a pleasure. I was sure you were going to kill me with your bare hands."

Nancy smiles to herself, fingernails clicking on the plastic case she was holding. "Can I tell you something? I actually thought it was funn-"

"I wouldn’t have minded," Rahm says, standing up straight to look her in the eye.

"Pardon?" Her eyes are wide open, lips parted, still smiling slightly, and Rahm wonders if he’s maybe a little too much for her, a little too much to understand, and then remembers New Years and how they fight over the teaching schedule every week, and thinks probably not. He doesn’t repeat himself, just steps closer.

She flushes and bends over to fiddle with the hem of her pants, all the bags hung on her arms slipping and sliding over each other. "Ready for your testing?" he asks, and she bites her lip.

"Mostly. I – I’m not sure about my attitudes, I’ve just been having such trouble with them since I hurt my back. It’s like I’ve forgotten what a proper one feels like."

You and me both, Rahm thinks. Isn’t that the fucking truth? "Really? Let me see." Rahm isn’t sure why he’s doing this, but he moves over to her as she shrugs out of her cape of bags, the straps tangling and pooling around her feet.

She rests one hand on Rahm’s bicep, shaking out her legs, and then straightens her back, her other arm held out gracefully, expectantly. Rahm puts a hand against her stomach as her leg rises slowly, kneecap facing out. Finally she stands, poised and beautiful, and then bites her lip again. "That’s as far as I can raise it," she says, her back curved and hips straight in the scant light that leaks into the studio from the hallway.

Rahm frowns, and slides his hand around to hold her ribs, fingers splayed warmly against the fabric. He puts his other hand under her leg, cupping her knee lightly. "Try again."

He moves his hand up gently and her leg follows, her ankle making the line Rahm has always found to be the most perfect in the universe, and she makes a little intake of breath as she rises up on her toes. Rahm’s hand moves to her hip, his forearm still braced against her stomach, where he can feel a heartbeat. His fingers are pressed behind her knee, and she smells like salt and flowers and this studio.

"Ah. That’s it."

Rahm feels like he could lift her up, like she weighs nothing, and the image in front of him of her outstretched arms and the back of her neck imprints itself in his brain. Nancy lowers her leg slowly, and tries again, this time his hand only supporting her leg. She’s breathing shallowly, and he moves around to hold both of her hands, her fingers cool against his palm as her leg makes an elegant curve in the air.

"Okay, now –" he moves both hands to grasp her sides, and she turns in a circle, her eyes never leaving his.

"Oops –" she stumbles, falling against his chest, and fuck seniority anyway; Rahm thinks he might have a problem with admiring the people closest to him too much to let himself feel like an equal, not with Nancy. She has the upper hand but he’s not afraid to take it away from her, which is what he does now, his thumb against her eyebrow and her cool fingers sliding down his chest. She gives a girlish little gasp when he pulls her against him and her hair curls down from its bun, but Rahm isn’t fooled; she knows exactly what she’s doing, her teeth sharp and her mouth small under his. Nancy pulls her head back for a minute, Rahm tugging the elastic from her hair to fill his hands with it, and he says "Thank you, may I have another?"

Her eyes flash and she runs her hands up his back, digging her fingernails in. "Hold your tongue, Rahm," she says, and he grins.

"You first."

He folds his arms underneath her and lifts her up against his chest, deepening the kiss and thoroughly enjoying the little breathy noises she’s making. She holds his head in her hands, angling it just right, her tongue first over and then under his. She wraps her legs around his waist, her spine straight and his hands moving from her thighs to cup her ass. She bites his lip again, worrying at it before opening her mouth to his, and Rahm lets out a groan, settling her hips against his more closely, his fingers finding contours and muscles through her tights.

Nancy tilts her head, hair sweeping around to envelop them in a warm, sweet-smelling circle, and Rahm leans her against the brick wall, his mouth moving down her neck and collarbone. He licks the hollow of her throat slowly and she makes another, deeper noise. He slides a hand underneath her shirt, kissing the pulse in her neck as his fingers find her breast, stroking until he sweeps his thumb across, and she grasps his waist and pulls him in closer.

They slowly shed their clothes, hissing as they pull away from each other only to come back like magnets, sinking to the hardwood floor where Rahm covers her body with his when she shivers. She curls around him like a cat as his fingers and tongue find all the dark, warm places of her body. She cries out once, twice, before making him do the same, all legs and slender muscles and glinting smiles.

They lie there for a time, car lights making wet noises outside and casting erratic tracks over the ceiling, before they dress, murmuring thanks or apologies, Rahm isn’t sure which. The lights go all the way off. On their way down the steep, narrow stairs, Nancy stops and turns upwards to face him. Her body is once more wrapped in thin layers, ropes and straps of cloth, gracefully mummified as only Nancy could be. "You’re going to make me live to regret this, aren’t you?"

Rahm knows the only answer to give, and gives it with his shark’s grin. "You bet your sweet ass I will."

She sighs theatrically, and mutters a "One day… one day, Rahm…" that was mostly lost, along with a smile, to the shadowed jangling of keys.

"You know you wouldn’t have it any other way."

"Go home, Rahm."

He does, turning down a ride to sprint home in the light rain, trying to convince himself that he does even half the things he does purely because he wants to. Not even the splashing of exhaust-filled slush can get rid of the musky-sweet smell from his skin by the time he reaches the campus, safe once more from having to win or lose anything.

-

Rahm bites his tongue when he thinks really hard. He trusts that Barack will never reveal that to anyone else. Right about now he’s thinking very hard (and somewhat begrudgingly) that the world is a better place because Michelle Robinson can coherently explain anything, thus enabling him to actually finish his paper. He bites his tongue again.

Barack, flipping through a newspaper with his back against the wall, says, "Didn’t your mother ever tell you your face would freeze like that?"

Rahm pushes back from the desk calmly. "Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to fucking bother Rahm Emanuel when he’s fucking working?"

Barack chuckled. "No. But I believe they put that on signs in maternity wards now, just to forewarn people as soon as they’re born."

"That’s right: I’m a fucking natural disaster."

Barack ruffles the newspaper. "Speaking of which, did you hear about–"

"Barry. I’m only going to say this once. Go back to your fucking crossword before I go off the Richter scale."

Barack stifles a laugh, and Rahm only gets two more sentences written before the question comes cheekily from the bed: "Four-letter word for annoyingly neurotic college roommate with the patience of a hurricane. From Hebrew origin."

"Barry, I swear to God –"

Barack sucked his pen. "I should know this. I just can’t put my finger on –"

"I’ll tell you what you can put your fucking finger on, is your non-existent pulse in about four fucking seconds."

"It can’t be ‘Jon,’ that doesn’t fit – and ‘Andy’ isn’t Hebrew. I’m telling you, Rahm, I’ve almost got it –"

Rahm stands up, his chair falling over backwards. He advances on the bed, Barack pulling his legs back protectively and laughing, the newspaper spread over his lap. Rahm rips it, ignoring the feeble noise of protest and straddling Barack’s legs. He presses Barack’s shoulders against the wall, bringing his face in close. "Three-letter word," he breathes, "for dead beyond all recognition."

Barack’s brow creases, caught off guard. "Three?"

An obscene crinkle comes from below as they grapple closer, shoulders bumping. 

"‘You,’" Rahm answers before he seals off any further attempted witticisms with a fierce kiss, tongue hotly claiming as Barack grunts and Rahm bangs his knuckles against the wall.

U.S. Embassy in Beirut Bombed, reads the crumbled headline under Rahm’s knee, all past issues and happenings, all bombs and natural disasters and government plans lost to the unconquerable present.


End file.
